


bold and brazen, kindly

by guiltylights



Category: One Piece
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, I had to talk about em, Post-Punk Hazard, Pre-Dressrosa, also I just think Nami's personality with Law's is very fun, listen Nami and Law have Parallels okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 21:43:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15805155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guiltylights/pseuds/guiltylights
Summary: Nami’s bright orange curls flutter in the wind, a shout of colour against the night sky.“You put a lot of faith into Straw-Hat-ya.” Law says, very quietly.There is no humour in Nami’s tone, no hesitancy. Only a conviction simple like faith and stronger than love, a belief steadfast as the seas.  “Of course. He’s the man who’s going to become Pirate King.”What is the use of a god – what is the use of an idol,Law wants to know.What is the use of faith, of believing?





	bold and brazen, kindly

**Author's Note:**

> [Time started: 25th Aug 18, 6:00pm;– ] 
> 
> I blame my friend entirely. They mentioned how Law and Nami have this parallel of watching their parental figure die in front of them and I was just like :- ) Guess This Is Happening. 
> 
> I intended this to be more of a Nami-and-Law-parallel-study fic, and it turned into more of a Nami-and-Law-discuss-Luffy-as-part-of-Law’s-insecurities-which-resulted-in-accidental-discovering-of-parallels-along-the-way fic. 
> 
> These ficlets are enablers. They’re so short, my brain keeps making me pump them out.

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She finds him out on the deck of the Thousand Sunny. The breeze is quiet on the ocean today; the suck and boom of the waves is the only thing that Law can hear for miles around, the sound of it punctuated by the tattooed cadence of the sea slapping against the ship’s hull. The noise is not unpleasant. It thrums lowly against Law’s ears, almost drowning out the sound of her settling next to him, back against the railing. Almost.

“Quiet night, tonight,” Nami comments, her loud orange hair blowing around her face in the wind. She’s clutching a bottle of rum by the neck in her left hand. Law eyes the bottle, watches how light glints dully off the edge of its opaque brown glass, and wonders whether Nami’s the one responsible for its half-full status. He’d seen that bottle, back when he had still been in the dining room. It’d been unopened.

Law jerks his head back towards the direction behind them. The door to the dining room is shut tight, but muffled sounds of laughter, yells, and general merry noise-making still leaked through the tight airspaces between the door and the doorframe, seeped through the light beamed wood of the door. The embedded round porthole flickered merrily with warm orange lamplight, bright like a bulbous glowing eye. “I wouldn’t exactly call that ‘quiet’, Nami-ya.”

Nami laughs. It’s a soft, low sound, blending in easily into the dark of the night and the sea. “Mm, well, that’s just how Luffy and the others are,” she says, voice fond, her gaze cast towards the door where the rest of the crew is. The light coming from the porthole falls over the smooth planes of her face, illuminating her eyes and making them shine. Law glances at Nami only once, before flicking his gaze back out over the ocean’s black horizon.

There’s silence between them for a while, punctuated only by the sound of the crashing waves. The air smells of salt and prickling brine.

“Not gonna join us?” Nami asks, deliberately casual.

Law frowns. “No,” he says, curtly.

Nami pouts. “You’re no fun.”

“I’m not here for fun.” Law glares even harder out into the open sea. What is _with_ these Straw-Hat Pirates? Their nonchalance about the entire situation they are in is frustrating. The both of them are aiming to work together to take down one of the _Four Emperors_. They should be anything but relaxed. But throughout the whole day today, any attempts on Law’s part to get the crew talking about strategy had been rebuffed by nonsense – if it hadn’t been Straw-Hat’s three-second attention span dragging him away to whatever new fleeting thing that caught his interest, it had been Long Nose and Dr. Chopper’s exhilarated shouting over their current big catch of the day, or something else equally inane. It’s infuriating. He’s being swept in their pace.

Nami snorts. “You don’t have to worry so much,” she says.

“Excuse me?”

Nami rolls her eyes. It looks practiced, almost as if this is a gesture she does a hundred times. With a crew like the Straw-Hats, Law doesn’t doubt it is. To have such a look directed at himself does make him feel vaguely insulted, though.

“You’re worried, aren’t you? It’s written all over your brooding face.”

Law very gamely does not sputter. “I do not _brood–_ ”

Nami continues on, as if she never heard him, “you’re worried about whether or not the entire plan to take down an Emperor will even work, about that entire bargain scheme we have going on with that Warlord–” If Nami notices how Law tenses at the mention of Doflamingo, she doesn’t show it, “–and about a thousand other things in between, probably – you look like the type to fret, after all.” She wags a finger at him and clicks her tongue, and Law, against his better judgment, feels almost scolded. “And _I’m_ telling you, you don’t have to worry so much about it. Why worry about something you can’t change, right now?”

“If _I_ recall, you were very much in favour against this plan, Nami-ya.” Law snipes back in reply.

The way she, Dr. Chopper and Long Nose had tried earnestly voting against the execution of such a scheme had been funny, really. Almost tragically humourous in the way it fell on the deaf ears of their captain, whom Law knows takes an idea and runs a thousand miles ahead with it once taken with it. There’s really no stopping Straw-Hat once he gets something into his head – and Law supposes Straw-Hat’s crew would know that more acutely than anybody.

Nami sighs. “Well, yes, I am – why run into trouble when you can just avoid altogether, I would say – but Luffy’s the captain, after all.” She lifts her shoulders in a shrug, exasperated in its motion but heavy in its love, and it’s that same love that pulls the corner of Nami’s mouth up into a smile now, even as she puts on an aggrieved tone. Something about the gestures, the shrug and the smile, makes Law’s stomach feel funny, “so whatever he says goes.”

“Besides,” Nami continues, “if Luffy says he’s going to achieve something, then he’s going to achieve it. So stop thinking about it so hard. You’re going to get white hairs early.”

Nami’s bright orange curls flutter in the wind, a shout of colour against the night sky.

“You put a lot of faith into Straw-Hat-ya.” Law says, very quietly.

There is no humour in Nami’s tone, no hesitancy. Only a conviction simple like faith and stronger than love, a belief steadfast as the seas. “Of course. He’s the man who’s going to become Pirate King.”

Nami’s eyes are caught and stuck on something far, far away; Law follows her line of sight, and sees that she’s staring at the tall branches of the trees planted at the ship’s top deck, near where the main mast is. A sudden gust of wind rustles the dense dark leaves, startling like ghosts, and if Law squints he can just about make out the round orange fruits hanging heavy from the branches of the trees, their skins brightly dull in the gloom.

“I met Luffy in the East Blue,” Nami says, suddenly. Law tilts his head, listens. “I had been dealing with…things, back then, you can call it. I had lived on my own for years, survived on my own for years; I definitely wasn’t – and still am not – anybody’s damsel in distress. But at some point, I had ended up being truly, completely out of my depth.”

Nami gives out a funny little chuckle; a wry sort of grin has twisted around her lips. “Before that, I had actually stolen Luffy’s ship to get back to my village. Luffy chased me all the way back. And when I finally gave in and asked for his help, despite all that I’ve done – Luffy said yes.”

Nami leans back, tips her head back to look at the sky. “Luffy’s always fought against the craziest of odds, worked to create miracles where people said it was impossible. I– we believe in him because of that.” Nami smiles.

“We believe in him because of who he is.”

“Straw-Hat-ya is no god,” Law bites out, irrationally angry for no reason.

“No, he isn’t.” Nami agrees easily. “But he doesn’t need to be.”

 _What is the use of a god – what is the use of an idol,_ Law wants to know. _What is the use of faith, of believing?_ He thinks he believed in miracles, once, back when he had been dying from a terrible white disease; a curse of a dying town and the greed of the government made tangible, he hadn’t believed in miracles then, hadn’t believed in anything at all, until Corazon had stolen that Devil Fruit and rammed it down his throat. Somehow Corazon’s smiles and tears, his honest blundering had become to him the most precious thing, rare in its sincerity yet extraordinary in its love. When Corazon had given him that fruit, and promised him they could start a life together somewhere far away, Law had believed in miracles then.

But then Corazon had been caught, shot in the chest and brutally killed by his own brother, and Law had stopped believing.

“You know, I didn’t want to be a pirate.” Nami’s eyes are closed against the wind ruffling and tugging at her hair. “I thought pirates were the most no-good, dirty, immoral people there were on the planet. Bellemere-san had been a marine, and I guess as a kid, I thought anything that she fought against was automatically bad.” Law doesn’t know who this Bellemere person Nami is referring to is, but he keeps quiet. Nami snorts. “Though I quickly learned that the Marines aren’t all that good either, pretty early on in my life.”

Nami falls silent, then. Law is wondering at the abrupt pause, thinking about what it could possibly mean, when Nami says, quietly, “pirates killed my mother.”

The words hang heavy in the cool black air. Law watches as Nami opens her eyes again, eyes half-lidded, to stare again at the crown of the dark swath of trees on the top deck.

“Right in front of me.” Nami says, words without fanfare, without pomp. Matter-of-fact. “They killed her right in front of me; shot her point-blank in the chest.”

“…Why are you telling me this?” Law swallows, feels his lips untack.

Corazon in front of him, but not really, because the wall of wood that separated them had been as insurmountable and immovable as will. _I’m sorry I lied to you. I didn’t want you to hate me._ Him, screaming and screaming and screaming without any sound at all, him, a child – and then a gunshot, a gray snowfall. No sound until there was, no understanding of what he had until it was gone. _Leave him alone now. He is free._

“To tell you to believe. In Luffy. I know he’s an idiot, with an endless appetite and the attention span of an insect, but–”

_Believe in him._

Law grits his teeth, bitter. “I am not as magnanimous as you.”

To be carefree, in spite of everything that has happened. To be able to forgive. Law has no delusions; he holds no dreams of universal justice or heroism, no illusions of grandeur about the cosmic karma of his actions and revenge. He might be doing the things he’s doing in a dead man’s name, but Law is well aware that what this is is a personal vindication. A dead person doesn’t care whether they are avenged or not, after all. And even though he had been the one who had chosen to form an alliance with the Straw-Hat captain, even though he knows personally and up-close the impossible things Straw-Hat has accomplished, Law still cannot bring himself to fully believe. Wonders if it’ll even be enough, at the end of it all. No, Law is not that kind.

Nami laughs again, once, and it’s a sound so amused and free that it actually pauses Law in his thinking. “Oh, Law, that’s not what I meant at all.”

There is no presumption in her tone, none to be found. Law looks at this woman, this woman who is bold and brazen, kindly enough to seek a lone man out when he escaped from the unbearable optimism of the group but shrewd enough to not give in to his brooding anyway, and thinks that he is almost convinced. As things stand, however, when Nami pushes herself off the railing, Law elects not to look in her direction. The similarities between them jar him more than he likes to admit.

“Come join us in the dining room, if you feel like it,” she says, voice light, before stretching and popping her back out, arms reaching towards the sky. “Sanji-kun’s cooking is the best – and he’s made stuff that doesn’t have bread, so you actually have things to eat. You’re welcome any time. I’m heading back in for now,” she adds, and Law feels her sweep past him, to head towards the dining room door.

Law glances to his left, and sees the half-full bottle of rum settled on the railing, brown glass dark and gleaming amber light from one side.

“Consider that a gift,” Law hears Nami say, and Law has no doubt in his mind that she’s grinning like a cat, “that rum was expensive, though, so I expect a gratitude payment fee of about a thousand beri back, paid preferably as soon as possible. See you around!” She says cheerily, and before Law could even protest at the sudden charge of an outrageous price, she’s disappeared back into the dining room, slipping around the door and closing it silently behind her. A loud cheer comes up from the inside at her arrival, and it’s as if she never left.

Around him, the sea is dark and quiet. The cheers of the crew behind him seem very far away, but Law feels it all the same. He reaches out for the rum after a moment, uncorks the lid; raises it to his lips, and drinks.

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**Author's Note:**

> Clearly my brain lies to me when it tells me these things are going to be ficlets less than 1k. STOP TRICKING ME INTO WRITING THESE THINGS DAMNIT, I HAVE WORK TO DO. 
> 
> Is it in-character for Nami to spill her life-story to a veritable stranger? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I have a [tumblr](http://guilty-lights.tumblr.com/), if you wanna stop by and say hi or anything! 
> 
> Leave a comment or kudos, they make my day :) (Comments a bit more than kudos, but y’know, both are great.)
> 
> [Time ended: 27th Aug 18, 1:23am;– ]


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